However, the peril was urgent, the last bounds of delay had been reached; Thénardier was standing thoughtfully a few paces distant from the prisoner.
Marius cast a wild glance about him, the last mechanical resource of despair. All at once a shudder ran through him.
At his feet, on the table, a bright ray of light from the full moon illuminated and seemed to point out to him a sheet of paper. On this paper he read the following line written that very morning, in large letters, by the eldest of the Thénardier girls:—
“THE BOBBIES ARE HERE.”
An idea, a flash, crossed Marius’ mind; this was the expedient of which he was in search, the solution of that frightful problem which was torturing him, of sparing the assassin and saving the victim.
He knelt down on his commode, stretched out his arm, seized the sheet of paper, softly detached a bit of plaster from the wall, wrapped the paper round it, and tossed the whole through the crevice into the middle of the den.
It was high time. Thénardier had conquered his last fears or his last scruples, and was advancing on the prisoner.
“Something is falling!” cried the Thénardier woman.
“What is it?” asked her husband.
The woman darted forward and picked up the bit of plaster. She handed it to her husband.